Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Every modern President, it must be observed, starts his term with a pledge of "openness and transparency." (One wonders why there is this constant need to set one's administration apart -- in this one respect -- from those that preceded it: "Unlike the previous administration, I pledge that we will be the most transparent and open government ever.")

Bill Clinton did it; George W. Bush did it; and Barack Obama claimed he would top them all:

Every single one of those promises you can hear in that video -- with the exception of the last one, about health care -- was a lie:

"... the toughest ethics laws ever..." Yes, certainly: think Solyndra, think the Pigford scandal, and any of a dozen other graft schemes I could mention, all brought to you courtesy of the Obama administration.

"... so long as I am President, I won't stop fighting to cut waste and abuse in Washington..." This promise became a lie with the bailouts of GM, Goldman Sachs, and so many others (like Solyndra, again), and has gone on to produce the largest cumulative deficits under any President ever: indeed, by the end of Obama's first four years, he will have accumulated a greater deficit than all the 43 presidents who preceded him, put together:

-- and that's if he manages to stick to his projections, which he has not done to date. (The portion of the deficits shown as the steepest spike are the fiscal years 2009-2012; the leveling off projected after the spike are the projections for FY 2013-2017. So notice, please, the assumed huge drop in government spending from FY 2012 to FY 2013. That may well happen, but only if Obama is not reelected.)

Today we learn of yet another proof of Obama's lies: he has all of a sudden decided that the documents subpoenaed by Congress on the "Fast and Furious" gun-running operation are to be shielded by "executive privilege." And that move comes just one day after President Obama's campaign filed a complaint against Karl Rove's Super PAC in an attempt to force it to disclose its donors -- all the while that the Obama campaign's Super PAC refuses to disclose its own donors. Transparency, anyone?

Every candidate for president makes promises he knows he will not be able to keep. But in the case of Barack Obama, we have a president who is campaigning for reelection while openly breaking all the promises he made four years earlier. It is not exactly the best recipe for gaining credibility with the voters, but then again, it is not as though those who will vote to reelect Obama will even take note of such things.

The out and out theft of the bonds placed by investors into Chrysler Corp. and General Motors was stunning. These are the kinds of bonds that used to be thought of as "widows and orphans" investments because of their secure nature. Then one day they are essentially either cancelled or turned over to the United Auto Workers. It was this biggest confiscation of private assets in the history of the United States Government. Then the closing of 600 dealerships, and then the "Cash for Clunkers" fiasco.

Shades of the New Deal and the slaughtering of calves in the street by union and National Recovery Act goons. Over 20,000,000 gallons of milk poured into the gutter because it was "unauthorised production" as determined by the NRA goons. Billy Jeff Blythe said it best after the end of his two terms, "We kept every promise that we intended to keep."

On the other front...what do we do about an ECUSA that is intent upon destroying the concept of an Episcopal/Anglican Church? It's like the demons and zombies are swarming around our wagons. Can we make it to the land of milk and honey, or are we all doomed to food stamps and a new set of linsey woolsey clothes every year?

So, Auriel, you would turn the Greens and Justice parties into the new parties of thieves and liars. Better that we would vote for no one to represent us at the national level, and dissolve into a federation of independent states, ideally (very) small city-states. Hand over adjudication to competitive (private) arbitrators, and defense to competitive (private) security firms.

Insurance companies know how to quantify risks better than any government official (bureaucrat), and private adjudicators in competition would likely be more reliable once they realize that handing out bad decisions results in loss of clients.

Private security firms, needing to make a profit and subject to the costs of being insured would have a strong motivation to regulate their behavior to satisfy the residents of their client city-state, knowing that failure, whether by tyranny or negligence, would result in being without a future contract.

Most of the Federal government is almost totally non-productive, representing an egregiously large drain on the productive output of the country.

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